Making our Community Less Lonely: Building Housing for Social Connection

While it may seem that we are more connected than ever, loneliness and isolation are rising. The pandemic showed us that no amount of technology replaces face-to-face interaction with others. Langley City is a walkable community, and we've intentionally designed our public spaces, parks, libraries, and community centres to help people connect.

Langley City is also a community where 80% of households live in apartments or townhouses. So, there is an excellent opportunity to think about how we design semi-public spaces in and around these buildings to support bringing people together. Community gardens are one of the most basic and powerful connectors I've seen. We have many community gardens in our parks and new apartment projects. Of course, we can go beyond community gardens.

SFU, Happy Cities, and Hey Neighbour Collective have been researching and developing design toolkits to help municipalities and home builders create buildings that support social connections. To be clear, this isn't about co-living, as most people also love the privacy of their own home, but it does include outdoor and indoor amenity spaces of buildings, how buildings connect with the street, lobbies, balconies, hallways, and other common spaces.

The following are the six design principles for the "Building Social Connections" toolkit.

• Location: Maximize opportunities for interaction by locating social features and spaces in convenient, visible, and prominent locations with natural light; Multiply social impact through co-location.
• Invitation: Maximize spontaneous daily encounters by designing places to pause and interact; Use the built environment as an icebreaker for social interaction.
• Activation: Create interesting, functional spaces and a centre or heart for the community through diverse scales of common spaces with intentional things to see and do.
• Inclusion: Create spaces that are accessible and safe for people of all ages, abilities, and backgrounds; Reflect different cultural preferences and identities.
• Transition: Balance high-quality, livable private homes with common spaces; Consider thoughtful transitions and gradients from public to private space.
• Evolution: Nurture a sense of belonging through stewardship of common spaces; Allow spaces to evolve with residents over time to meet changing community needs.

A visual example of the "Invitation" principle. Select the image to enlarge.

One of the things that stood out to me is that many of these considerations can be applied to existing buildings with simple retrofits or even just new furniture.

If you are interested in how to design buildings that help combat loneliness and support community, check out the toolkit and visit the Hey Neighbour Collective website.